St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-10-29
LAWYERS, LOOK HERE.
Fhe Supreme Court Gives the Bar of
the State a Pointer.
VIOLATIONS OF RULE NINE.
An Important Matter to Both the
Bench and Bar---0pinions
Passed In.

The supreme court yesterday handed
down decision in the case of Mary E.
Duncan VS.. T. X. Kohler. appealed
from the district court of Mcleod
county. Mrs. Duncan, it seems, owns
farm in that county, which is worked
and conducted by her husband, against
whom the sheriff of Mcleod county
holds one OF more judgments, for the
satisfaction of which he seized and sold
quantity of grain produced on the
farm. MISE. Duncan then sued the sheriff
for the value Of the grain, and won her
case in the district court. The supreme
court affirmS the decision of the lower
court, and takes occasion to sit all over
the attorneys who fail to assign errors
in their appeals. The syllabus and part
of the decision, which is of especial in
terest to the bar in general, are given
below.
Mary e. Duncan, respondent, VS.. T. x. Kohler,
Syllabus: The rejection of comperent evil
dence is no ground for reversal where it is
apparent that if admitted it could not pos
sibly have affected the result. Rule g. re-
curing the appellant to make an assignment
of errors. commented upon and explained.
MITCHELL, j.
The decision, after reviewing the case,
speaks of the failure of counsel to live
up to rule of the court, relating to the
assignment of errors, and then gives
the bar of the state this rather pointed
advice:
But in view of the large number of
cases at the present term in which cOun-
sci seem to have either overlooked or
misunderstood this rule, we deem it
proper to take this occasion to call the
attention of the bar to it. We had
found that the ''brief," OF points and
authorities of appellants, required by
the rules, were very frequently eX-
tended into an elaborate argument. in
which the discussion of the various
points intended to be made were so run
together and mixed up that it required
careful examination Of the entire
brief, and often of a voluminous record.
in order to ascertain just what errors
were intended to be urged, and
even after such research it
was sometimes impossible to
determine positively what errors
were relied on. In view of this state of
facts, and in order to facilitate the pre-
sentation of cases by counsel and their
consideration by the court, at the close
OF the October term. 1885, we amended
Rule 9, so as to require the party remov-
ing cause to this court to prefix to his
brief, but stated separately, an assign
Inent OI erFOrS asserted and Intended to
be urged. Each assignment of error
was required to be separately, distinctly
and conSecutively numbered. Such a
rule was nothing new, for the supreme
court Of the United States and those of
many, il not majority of the states,
have long had similar rules, some
of them much more strict
and eXacting. Such a rule
is eminently convenient and useful, both
to the bar and the court. 1t enables op-
posing counsel to readily and certainly
ascertain just what points he has to
meet III the preparation of his brief, and
the court to see just what points it is to
| consider and to cOnfine discussion to
them. This amendment to the rule was
Immediately published in the news
papers and soon afterwards i'm Vol. SO
OF our reports. Hence the bar of the
state have had ample time to be-
come familiar with it's require
ments. For several terms the
rule was quite generally complied
with, but at the present term it seems to
have been quite frequently forgotten or
misunderstood. We need not say that
the bar is as much interested as the
court In its reasonable enforcement. To
avoid misapprehension hereafter we call
attention to two mistakes in regard to
its meaning that seem sometimes to have
been fallen into. The first is that where
(aS is sometimes the case where case is